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A Daytona Beach family practice doctor who has headed both the Florida Medical Association and the Florida Board of Medicine is the new state surgeon general and secretary of the Florida Department of Health.

Florida Gov. Rick Scott’s office announced today that Farmer, a retired Air Force Colonel and Bronze Star recipient, will head the health department.

Scott intends to consolidate Florida’s two health agencies. The Florida Medical Association, which backed Scott in the election, has insisted that a physician head any merged agency.

It’s unclear from Scott’s press office whether it would be Farmer or Dudek who would ultimately become manager of a merged health agency.

What is clear is that Farmer and Scott are of like mind in their opinion of the Affordable Care Act. In a column for the Daytona Beach News-Journal in September, Farmer described the atmosphere at a tense Florida Medical Association summer meeting in which the state doctor’s professional society took a vote of no confidence in the leadership of the American Medical Association, because it had endorsed health reform.